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Context No. 355 of 4322 · 2 Maccabees

Context · Reflection

2 Maccabees 6:18-23: in context

18Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, a man already well advanced in years, and of a noble countenance, was compelled to open his mouth to eat swine’s flesh. 19But he, welcoming death with honor rather than life with defilement, advanced of his own accord to the instrument of torture, but first spat out the flesh, 20as men ought to come who are resolute to repel such things as not even for the natural love of life is it lawful to taste. 21But those who had the charge of that forbidden sacrificial feast took the man aside, for the acquaintance which of old times they had with him, and privately implored him to bring flesh of his own providing, such as was proper for him to use, and to make as if he did eat of the flesh from the sacrifice, as had been commanded by the king; 22that by so doing he might be delivered from death, and so his ancient friendship with them might be treated kindly. 23But he, having formed a high resolve, and one that became his years, the dignity of old age, and the gray hairs which he had reached with honor, and his excellent education from a child, or rather the holy laws of God’s ordaining, declared his mind accordingly, bidding them to quickly send him to Hades.

Eleazar was one of the most respected scribes in Israel, a man of ninety with a lifetime of integrity behind him, and under the persecution of Antiochus he was dragged forward and ordered to eat pork in violation of God's law. He refused, spitting it out, and prepared to be tortured to death rather than defile himself. But then something subtler was offered him, and it is the real test of the story.

The officials in charge of the forbidden feast were old friends of Eleazar's, and they pulled him aside privately and proposed a way out. He would not actually have to eat the unlawful meat. He could bring his own permitted food and simply pretend, going through the motions so that the crowd would think he had obeyed the king. No one who mattered would know the difference, and his life would be spared, and their old friendship honored. It was a clean loophole, deniable, invisible, and Eleazar refused it. He refused the pretense itself, and his reasons are striking. The young people watching, he said, would see him appear to comply and might be led astray into thinking a man like Eleazar had abandoned his faith. And a life bought by hypocrisy would betray his age, his gray hairs, his whole life's integrity, and the holy law of God. Better to die honestly than to live by a lie that would corrupt the people looking up to him.

Most of us are rarely asked to commit a dramatic sin outright. We are far more often offered Eleazar's loophole, the deniable pretense, the quiet compromise no one would ever have to know about. When that door is opened to me, with the added weight of who might be watching and following my example, would I refuse it as Eleazar did, unwilling to buy my own comfort with a pretense that costs me my integrity and misleads someone younger?

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